In the first decades of the twentieth century, a number of leading European physicists cast themselves in the role of philosophers in their public lectures and speeches addressed to non-specialist academic audiences. But what exactly were physicists doing when they waxed philosophical about the latest development in modern physics? In this paper I examine the cultural obligations and forms of intellectual life that underpinned this form of public philosophical discourse, particularly in German-speaking world following the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. This was a discourse with its own aims, structures and cultural norms, which transcended narrow professional concerns and disciplinary boundaries. But it was also a discourse that manifested certain underlying tensions. While physicists such as Max Born, Arnold Sommerfeld and Werner Heisenberg were, in some sense, culturally obliged to philosophise, they often maintained an idiosyncratic, ambivalent, and sometimes even hostile attitude to philosophy. Philosophical questions pertaining to the interpretatIon of quantum mechanics were seldom dealt with in anything more than a perfunctory manner. Yet, philosophy, in the broadest sense of the formation of a worldview, did form an important part of the vita contemplativa of many physicists. This kind of philosophising, however, was a deeply private affair, which was often deemed “too personal” for public dissemination. The public address therefore could provide a glimpse into the worldview that lay behind it, but a balance had to be struck between what one was prepared to say publicly and what one thought privately.

One of the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic was witnessing, in real time, science performed in public. In retrospect, this could have been a triumphant narrative that showcased the miracles of science, but it turned out to be a divisive story of pervasive distrust in scientific authority. Smart STS scholars blamed the arrogance of experts who sought to reassure the public by projecting a misleading sense of certainty and, by implication, publics who did not understand the complex, conflicted practices through which people make knowledge. This feels right. It is certainly reassuring to historians of science. But I am uncertain! Some prominent historians of science call for accessible work that helps publics learn to trust the right experts. Can messy narratives displace tidy stories of triumph or defeat in the public imagination? In this paper, I think through this question with cases drawn from my (sometimes frustrating) experiences in the classroom attempting to complicate the epistemic foundations and major narratives of global environmental history from an STS perspective. How does opening the black box of global climate models affect students’ trust in climate science? Does understanding the practices of biodiversity assessments enhance or undermine a proper sense of the threat of mass extinctions? Does it really matter that the Agricultural Revolution is fake news, and do we have a better story? These questions present dilemmas that can’t be resolved but offer opportunities for a particular public—students—to reflect on the values of alternative genres of science.